Grain legumes are a rich source of dietary proteins and hence are essential for achieving food and nutritional security, worldwide. Grain legumes are negatively affected by salt stress, which results in decreased growth, yield, productivity, and other financial losses. Salt stress causes severe phytotoxicities, like specific ion toxicities, hormonal and nutritional imbalances, disruptions of stomatal conductance, and alterations in leaf water potential and rate of photosynthesis. To enhance agricultural productivity under salt stress conditions, several ecofriendly methods have been tried recently. Out of these, the use of biostimulants gained particular attention due to their ease of availability and high-stress ameliorative potential. It includes the use of non-microbial biostimulants like humic acid and seaweed extracts (SWE), as well as microbial biostimulants like mycorrhiza, plant growth-promoting and nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which promote plant growth and development. Biostimulants successfully alleviate salt stress-induced toxicities in legumes, when introduced either alone or in combination with other macro- or microorganisms in the soil. In response to salinity, plants raise their cellular levels of osmolytes (proline and glycine betaine) and polyamines, as well as phytohormones. The application of biostimulants in grain legumes alleviates the salt stress-induced toxicity by improving the seed germination, seedling growth, rate of photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, absorption and uptake of minerals, grain development, yield, ROS homeostasis and osmoregulation. Many of the reviews have lacked the assessment of the effect of these ecofriendly biostimulants on mitigation of salt stress in grain legumes. The development of integrated, eco-friendly and sustainable use of various biostimulants and their mode of action in managing salt stress in legume production is discussed in the present review.

Genetics of Fusarium Wilt Resistance in Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) and Efficacy of Associated SSR Markers gene action;inheritance;validation;resistance breeding;SSR marker;wilt; Inheritance of resistance to Fusarium wilt (FW) disease caused by Fusarium udum was investigated in pigeonpea using four different long duration FW resistant genotypes viz., BDN-2004-1, BDN-2001-9, BWR-133 and IPA-234. Based on the $F_2$ segregation pattern, FW resistance has been reported to be governed by one dominant gene in BDN-2004-1 and BDN-2001-9, two duplicate dominant genes in BWR-133 and two dominant complimentary genes in resistance source IPA-234. Further, the efficacy of six simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers namely, ASSR-1, ASSR-23, ASSR-148, ASSR-229, ASSR-363 and ASSR-366 reported to be associated with FW resistance were also tested and concluded that markers ASSR-1, ASSR-23, ASSR-148 will be used for screening of parental genotypes in pigeonpea FW resistance breeding programs. The information on genetics of FW resistance generated from this study would be used, to introgress FW resistance into susceptible but highly adopted cultivars through marker-assisted backcross breeding and in conventional breeding programs.

Background: The region around Chandigarh in India has witnessed a resurgence of cholera. However, isolation ofV. choleraeO1 from the environment is infrequent. Therefore, to study whether environmental nonO1-nonO139 isolates, which are native to the aquatic ecosystem, act as precursors for pathogenic O1 strains, their virulence potential and evolutionary relatedness was checked.Methods: V. choleraewas isolated from clinical cases of cholera and from water and plankton samples collected from freshwater bodies and cholera-affected areas. PCR analysis for thectxA, ctxB, tcpA, toxTandtoxRgenes and AFLP with six primer combinations was performed on 52 isolates (13 clinical, 34 environmental and 5 reference strains).Results: All clinical and 3 environmental isolates belonged to serogroup O1 and remaining 31 environmentalV. choleraewere nonO1-nonO139. Serogroup O1 isolates werectxA, tcpA(ElTor),ctxB(Classical),toxRandtoxTpositive. NonO1-nonO139 isolates possessedtoxR, but lackedctxAandctxB; only one isolate was positive fortoxTandtcpA. Using AFLP, 2.08% of theV. choleraegenome was interrogated. Dendrogram analysis showed one large heterogeneous clade (n = 41), with two compact and distinct subclades (1a and 1b), and six small mono-phyletic groups. AlthoughV. choleraeO1 isolates formed a distinct compact subclade, they were not clonal. A clinical O1 strain clustered with the nonO1-nonO139 isolates; one strain exhibited 70% similarity to the Classical control strain, and all O1 strains possessed an ElTor variant-specific fragment identified with primer ECMT. Few nonO1-nonO139 isolates from widely separated geographical locations intermingled together. Three environmental O1 isolates exhibited similar profiles to clinical O1 isolates.Conclusion: In a unique study from freshwater environs of a cholera-endemic area in India over a narrow time frame, environmentalV. choleraepopulation was found to be highly heterogeneous, diverse and devoid of major virulence genes. O1 and nonO1-nonO139 isolates showed distinct lineages. Clinical isolates were not clonal but were closely related, indicating accumulation of genetic differences over a short time span. Though, environment plays an important role in the spread of cholera, the possibility of an origin of pathogenic O1 strains from environmental nonO1-nonO139 strains seems to be remote in our region.